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Hi Indigo_child.
Thanks for your comments. James's diagnosis was basically that he suffered from depression and he was described as harmless from immediately after the incident and he would converse rationally on any subject except religion.

I figured it would be something like that but it IS shocking when one first comes across an ancestor described as "a lunatic for 45 years" as I did. Having "been there and done that" with my own daughter in the 20th century and knowing how TODAY mental illness still carries a stigma, I could only imagine what it was like "back when".

In fact, a friend of my daughter's is slowly sinking into the dark mists of what I suspect is schizophrenia ONLY because his family refuse to get him help because they're afraid of the community stigma / gossip that would follow them! I've become VERY vocal about the degrees of depression and when someone starts on the old "lunatic" bit, I just start pushing them into a corner and asking what medical conditions THEY have. Diabetes is always a good one because diabetes is caused by a chemical imbalance in the body just like depression is. So I tell people if they're going to shun MY family because of mental illness, I'll make darned sure I shun THEIR family for being diabetic or whatever. It QUICKLY puts things into perspective for the "lunatic" bashers.

And could you imagine NOWADAYS if we tried to lock up all the people who were strongly religious??!! Boggles the mind doesn't it?